Beach House’s Teen Dream: Two Cent Review

As indie rock continues revisiting every previously articulated form of music known to man, the lines have become so blurred that it’s hard to see straight anymore. Take Beach House, for instance: Twenty years ago, Exxon would’ve stood a better chance of quelling the Valdez scandal than this synth-pop duo getting signed to Sub Pop. In fact, if Beach House had been offered a record contract in that era, it probably would’ve come from Elektra or Virgin – the homes of Simply Red and Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, respectively. With that in mind, it’s remarkable that Teen Dream succeeds as much as it does. As angelic as it is funereal, as beautiful as it is morbid, this record sounds like it was recorded by a few people isolated in a church somewhere in upstate New York. And it was. Beach House reportedly modified their sound for this record, but they don’t seem to be shrugging off their fawning critics: The so-called “dream pop” band unabashedly threw the first word into the album title. To the lone Grizzly Bear fan who still hasn’t visited Beach House yet, get up to speed: There’s a reason why Ed Droste has been creaming over them.